SWEATING SYSTEM. The practice
pursued by certain manufacturers, particularly of
clothing, of giving out piece work to individuals
on which the work is to be done at home and at
starvation wages.
The system is a survival of the household
form of industry that still exists in certain
trades in large cities. The term ‘sweater’ was
used first by journeymen tailors in London, who
worked long hours. As more work was given out, the home worker employed his family and outsiders, and thus a system of sub-contract developed in which the middleman was called the sweater. To-day ‘the sweating system’ designates the fag end of all industries where low wages and bad conditions prevail. The work is on a cheap grade of goods, principally cigars, bread made in cellars, candy, and garments. The people sweated belong to a low class of unskilled labor, generally foreign born. The sub-contractors usually are Jews.
Evils of the sweat shop are long hours—ten
to eighteen hours a day, including Sunday; overcrowding in the shops and surrounding tenements; unsanitary conditions in the work rooms and tenement houses, lacking in light, air, and cleanliness; child labor, very young girls and boys often running the machines; disease and deformity brought on by confinement and dust; irregularity of the work; and poor pay. The chief causes of the sweating system are (1) the excessive supply of unskilled labor; (2) an economic advantage to large dealers, in having their work done in small shops, thereby saving rent and evading factory laws, in cheap labor, in the inability of isolated workers to combine, and in the irregularity of work; (3) finally, the irresponsibility of employers, and the indifference of the public.
Among proposed remedies may be mentioned
(1) stringent legislation, backed by public opinion, to force these kinds of work into large shops and factories; (2) coöperative production; (3) trade unions for unskilled workers; (4) public workshops; (5) restriction of foreign immigration; (6) an eight-hour day; (7) consumers' league. Factory laws of Ohio, Massachusetts, Illinois, and New York require licenses, or permits,
rooms in which work may be done. Massachusetts only enforces such laws successfully; and she cannot protect herself against sweatshop goods from elsewhere.
Banks, White Slaves
(Boston, 1892); Hobson, Problem of Poverty
(London, 1891); Hull House Maps and Papers (New
York, 1898); American Social Science Association
Journal, 30, 57; United States Labor
Commission Bulletin IV. (May, 1896); Factory
Inspectors' Report (Illinois, 1895-96). See
; ; ; .